13. Quotation marks.—The French use special quotation marks « » (called guillemets). A guillemet is repeated at the head of every subsequent paragraph belonging to the quotation.
In conversational matter, guillemets are sometimes put at the commencement and end of the remarks, and the individual utterances are denoted by a metal-rule (with a space after). But it is more common to dispense with guillemets altogether, and to denote the commencement of the conversation by only a metal-rule. This is an important variation from the English method.
If the » comes after points de suspension, a middle space is put before and after it:
La cour a décrété qu’ « attendu l’urgence... » .
If, in dialogues, a passage is quoted, the « is put before the metal-rule:
« — Demain, à minuit, nous sortirons enfin! »
In tables and workings the » is used to denote an absent quantity:
| 125 . 15 | 130 » |
| 10 » | 15 . 25 |
If a sentence contains a citation, the point at the end of the latter is put before the », and the point belonging to the sentence after: